What's Hot: Excellent build quality and material, works with any Bluetooth device with HID, great keys and typing experience.

What's Not: None.

Reviewed by Tong Zhang

The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 is a Bluetooth keyboard that works with any smartphone, tablet, PC or Mac with Bluetooth HID profile. The keyboard is highly portable thanks to its slim form that has glass and aluminum finish. The keyboard has backlight with ambient sensor that helps adjust the backlighting automatically. The keyboard has a dedicated Windows 8 Home launcher which makes this an idea keyboard for the Windows 8 tablets without build-in keyboards.

Design

The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 is well made and looks like a piece of high quality hardware. The surface of the keyboard deck is made with glass and aluminum finish, matching the style of many today's tablets such as the Windows Surface RT and high end Asus Transformer series. The keyboard is compact and easy to carry with you on a trip, measuring 11.5 x 5 x 0.5 inches and weighing 12.2 ounces. The curved keys have more matte finish compared to the sleek keyboard deck, and the black keys stand out in contrast to the lighter brushed aluminum background. Several LED lights hide under the glass, including Bluetooth pairing and connecting status and power low warning lights.

The Logitech K8109 has minimum buttons and it's super easy to use. The keyboard has a power on/off slider on the right side. You can quickly turn on the keyboard when you need to use it or turn it off to save battery. A micro USB charging port lives on top of the keyboard and the K810 comes with a USB charging cable. There's a Bluetooth button on the bottom of the keyboard for you to connect the keyboard with a new device. The keyboard has a slight tilted angle to make typing more comfortable, though we found that it was still more comfortable.

Features

The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 has curved keys that dip in the middle and hold your fingers nicely on the keys. The keys have good travel by portable keyboard standards, and the size of the keyboard feels just right, not too cramped for fast typing. Typing experience using this keyboard is excellent. You'll hardly need any time to adjust to a new keyboard. The Logitech K810 has normal PC keyboard layout with a dedicated Home key that launches Windows 8's Modern UI. All Ctrl, FN and Alt keys are smaller sized while both Shift keys are large. The keyboard offers a double sized Back key and a half sized Delete key. The Fn keys are all half sized and they include dedicated tablet keys such as launching on-screen keyboard and Home screens.

The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 has excellent backlighting. The white light comes through both the keys and surrounding the keys, like a nice notebook keyboard with backlight. The ambient sensor works very well at adjusting the brightness of the backlight. You should have no trouble using this keyboard in the dark. The keyboard also has a built-in promixity sensor so it turns on the backlight when your hands just hover over it without touching. Nice!

The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 has built-in Bluetooth and works with any device with Bluetooth HID support. The keyboard has multi-pairing and multipoint connect support, and you can use the first Fn keys to switch among three Bluetooth devices connected to the keyboard. This makes the keyboard an ideal tool for traveling with a smartphone, a tablet and other devices that you need a keyboard for typing with. The keyboard supports Windows (including Windows 8 Pro and RT), Mac OS, iOS 4.0 or later as well as Android 3.0 or later devices. We tested it with all of these platforms, the keyboard worked with all flawlessly.

Battery

The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 has built-in rechargeable battery. It takes about 3 hours to fully charge and it comes with a USB charging cable. The keyboard has good battery life: if you work in well lit environment and keep the backlight off, the keyboard will last you about a year with 2 hours of typing each day; if you keep the backlight on, it will last you 10 days with 2 hours of typing each day. You can always save battery by turning it off using the power slider. When the battery power runs low, a red LED will alert on the top right corner above the keyboard.

Conclusion

With the launch of Windows 8, the Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 will make a good companion for those who buy a Windows 8 tablet or RT. Though you can get keyboard from Microsoft for the new Windows 8 tablets, the Logitech K810 is a great choice if you have more than one device that needs a keyboard, such as your smartphone. The road warriors will appreciate this all in one solution with PC-centric keys. The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 offers excellent typing experience thanks to its well designed keys, good key travel and spacing. The layout of the keyboard is mostly standard and the backlight works perfectly. The Logitech K810 also has great battery life. This is one of the best portable keyboards we've seen for under $100.